I grabbed the last can of soda from the barren wasteland she called arefrigerator.
I hurriedly popped the top and walked it back to her where she was laying in bed, sick as a dog from yet anotherwithdrawal.
“Here. I gotta get towork.”
Her shaking hand wrapped around the can as her sunken, dark eyes begged me for mercy. She didn’t have to ask; I knew what I needed todo.
“Yeah. I think Vinnie is working tonight. I’ll see what I canget.”
“That’s my girl. Thank you,Crit.”
“I’ll be back late though. Try to sleep and don’t let anyone come over with you sick like this. I don’t want this place to get robbedagain.”
I snapped out of my daze of strolling down terrible memory lane when the sound of splattering water echoed in the tiny bathroom. Looking over the side of the tub, I realized about half an inch of water was starting to coat the off whitetiles.
Shit.
I lunged for the faucet, turned off the water, and sunk back in to relax and let my fingers and toes get pruney. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had time to relax like that. The quiet and the peacefulness were almost disturbing. It was a far cry from the cursing, fighting neighbors and my mom hollering at me or moaning in some john’s ear all thetime.
Good riddance to all that bullcrap.
Giving in to my roaring stomach, I drained the water and got dressed. I laid towels on the floor of my soaking wet bathroom to lap up the water that had spilledover.
I made my way to the closest Waffle House my phone’s GPS could find. Luckily it was just up the road and I had a hankering for greasy cooking and a pot of coffee. I quickly scarfed down some scattered, smothered, covered, and chunked hashbrowns with two eggs over easy on the side and tried to think about what my next move was going tobe.
Not having a plan was both liberating and frustrating. I knew that the money I had was going to go faster than I could admit to myself. I checked the classified section for jobs while I sipped on hours-old coffee. I wasn’t really built to be a stable hand, and I didn’t think there was a strip joint inVilas.
As I was getting up to pay my check, Holt and the older bartender walked through the front door. Holt ambled over to me with a sweet smile on hisface.
“Nice to see you haven’t left our little town yet. Thinkin’ about sticking around?” He spit into a Dixie cup and I could smell the wintergreen chew that was wadded up in his lowerlip.
I held up the paper and shrugged. “A girl’s gotta eat and there ain’t any jobs here for me itseems.”
“Hey Bucky, aren’t we still looking for a daytimebartender?”
He nodded. “Yeah, the one Abel hired last week quit on me Mondaynight.”
“Well there ya have it. I’ll talk to Abel about it. Come by in a few hours and we’ll get ya all setup.”
Just like that I had a freaking job in a town I wasn’t even sure I was going to stay in. At least I knew I was going to be able to keep a roof over my head and hopefully finance another move, if nothingelse.
